Dark matter, which is unseen but makes up approximately 25 percent of the universe, is the most mysterious thing yet. Scientists still haven't figured out whether dark matter consists of particles or larger objects. There's a consensus that dark matter is a new type of particle that has very little interaction with everything in the universe, including gravity. But even the most powerful particle accelerators […]
We see it all the time in space movies during battle scenes—laser sounds, ship explosions. Since space is empty, there's nothing for sound to travel through, so even if these things actually happen, they'll be silent. Imagine those scenes as silent. But space isn't actually silent. Just as we know it. With plasma vibrations, electromagnetic vibrations, radioactive vibrations, space has its own music. […]
After months of anticipation, we now have Cassini's image. This image was taken on July 19th, when the Cassini spacecraft was 1.2 million km away from Saturn's rings, as seen from the naked eye. The image covers an area of 651,591 km. All of Saturn's rings, including the E ring, are included in this image. Besides Saturn, which is behind the Sun, we also see Mars, Venus, the Moon, and […]
ESO astronomers have obtained the best images yet of the strange clouds around the star cluster NGC 3572. The new images show how these clouds of gas and dust have strange bubbles, curvatures, and unusual features known as elephant trunks, caused by stellar winds expelled from hot young stars. Most stars do not form singly, but rather […]
Dartmouth College researchers have argued in a new study that the controversial accelerating expansion of the universe may be an illusion. Their findings don't explain cosmic acceleration; rather, they suggest there's nothing going on. They suggest our solar system is at the center of the universe and there's no dark energy. The 2011 Nobel Prize was awarded for the discovery that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. This discovery also suggests that three-quarters of the universe […]
This image shows a dotted line showing the known comets, asteroids, and similar objects in the solar system. Orange lines represent those that can cause global damage, while blue lines represent those that can cause damage in smaller areas. The Earth's orbit is shown as a green line. On January 15, 2013, a meteor that entered the Earth's atmosphere and exploded over Russia released 500 kilotons of energy. This […]
